Windows Games under LinuxThe two best options for running Windows games under Linux are Wine and Cedega, formerly known as WineX. I tried using the instructions from
linux-gamers.net to install Cedega from source. Cedega is available in binary form from
TransGaming for $5 per month, which is an unnecessary tax on Linux gamers. Other people feel even more strongly:
http://timedoctor.org/boycott_winex.php.
Wine is part of Debian testing, but unfortunately it is an old release. The latest release is available from Ubuntu or Wine.
Steam - There is a separate HOWTO to get Steam working using
Cedega CVS. Alternatively, I could use
Wine. In the end, I couldn't get either working from CVS. I had to use prepackaged debs. The Cedega deb worked perfectly. I also had to grab the Mozilla ActiveX control in order to Browse Games and see News.
Half Life - I was able to jump in the training session with no problems. Sound worked correctly the first time.
Counter Strike - I can host my own game with no problem. This morning I couldn't connect to the master server to get the server list, so I don't know if I can join other games yet. After deleting clientregistry.blob and letting Steam update itself again, I can connect!
Natural Selection - I followed the instructions on their website for installation. I had a slight problem. The installer kept trying to drop files in directories that did not exist, so I had to create them manually. That was annoying. After I did that, though, I was able to connect and play a quick game or two.
Stars! - I tried it briefly after following the Steam instructions for CVS Cedega, and it worked just fine, unlike Steam. I'm sure that CVS Wine or a Wine deb would be able to handle Stars!, a Windows 3.1 game, as well. Of particular note is that I did not have any font troubles like I remember Martin having a half dozen years ago when he tried to play Stars! using Wine. I did have to change my desktop resolution to 1280x1024 from 1280x960 in order to view the entire game.
Eve Online - This is the first real MMORPG I've tried to play under Linux. There's no Linux client, so I went with Cedega. Apparently, the Minmater empire gates cause the game to crash, so I won't be flying there. Also, the ESC key causes the game to crash. Apparently the game calls a DirectX rendering method without checking to see if it is supported. There's a fix for this in wine, so perhaps it will eventually work in Cedega. However, these are minor issues that don't prevent me from playing the game.
Update: as of Cedega 5.1.1, Eve's Minmater gates and the ESC key menu work properly. I had a little trouble
changing Cedega to use the new engine, but once I understood the way Cedega is supposed to work there were no problems.
Update2: as of 2008, Cedega is just not a good alternative to Wine for Eve. Wine support for Eve has been awesome. I cannot say the same for Cedega, so it is late 2009 and I haven't paid for Cedega in over a year.
Weirdly, I could not get this game to install at first. The installation would try to extract all the files in the executable and fail at resSND.stuff. I kept getting an error "Extract: failed to write file resSND.stuff". It seemed like the setup executable was corrupted or the disk was full, but neither of these items was the problem. Eventually I had to perform the Eve installation with Wine and then move the installed files over to my Cedega C: drive.